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Fantasy Freestyle: Reviewing the 2016 Model Portfolios

Our positional coverage is all wrapped up and draft season is drawing to a close as Opening Day nears. One series we’ll be rolling out starting next week is My Model Portfolio, wherein our staff members will each pick a roster using Mike Gianella’s final bid limits, which will be published tomorrow.

Before we get there, though, how about a little accountability on last year’s picks? I’m judging these purely based on how much difference there was between Mike’s preseason bid limits and his postseason retrospective valuations. There is no consideration for roster balance or categorical strength, this is purely an evaluation of whose draft day roster created the most raw profit over the course of the season.

What Worked: “Regarding the UT spot, we have discussed at length the reasons why we overrate having options and thusly underrate players that restrict options—such as DH-only players like Ortiz and Morales—so in a game where options are not taken away (like a draft or auction) I will happily take option reducing players if I think they are being discounted in the least.”

What Didn’t: “I liked chances of many of the $8-$16 outfielders to return $20-plus value more so than I liked the expected outcomes of the more expensive (or less expensive) outfielders once I factored in cost. This is especially true for the “speed” options, such as Revere, Gardner, and DeShields.”

The Verdict: Schwarber’s negative $31 profit reveals the flaw in this exercise right out of the gate, as Jeff would have replaced him as soon as the ACL tore and saved himself a good chunk of that loss. Even so, this team would have been done in by double-digit losses from several of its heaviest draft day investments.

What Worked: “On my pitching staff, I’m looking to lead my bullpen with the cheapest among Ken Giles, Zach Britton, and Cody Allen… Britton ended up being the cheapest. Building a relief corps around a pitcher with a double-digit K/9 and a historic groundball rate is a good start.”

What Didn’t: “In the outfield, I wanted to start with one of the power/speed guys, and Cain was a dollar cheaper than Starling Marte and Charlie Blackmon.”

The Verdict: Nice to see Collins, who writes our Closer Report, nail his bullpen anchor. Injuries (Cain, Choo, D’Arnaud, Richards) sunk this squad, to say nothing of the $26 Berrios took away thanks an 8.02 ERA and 1.87 WHIP in 58.1 major league innings, less volume and far worse performance than anyone expected.

What Worked: “Piscotty’s just a solid hitter in the making, with the ability to post a fine average and rack up decent counting stat totals in three of the four remaining categories. It’s weird to call a second-year hitter safe, but he has the skill set of a player who can return low-teens dollar value with a full season of at-bats even if he doesn’t hit the upper ends of his projection range.”

What Didn’t: “Sweet Bryce, do it for me twice. Harper showed the world what he’s capable of last year, and anything close to a repeat performance by the reigning NL MVP would get me started down a proper trail toward the crown.”

The Verdict: Tough to measure up when the guy you drop the most coin on earns less than half of it back. That, along with an injury to Duda, an extended stint in Triple-A for Buxton, and having Jonathan Papelbon on his team combined to wash out several nice calls that resulted in gains of $6-9.

What Worked: “Much like Adam Lind last year, the Milwaukee Brewers offer great power potential for fringe everyday first basemen. Fantasy owners shouldn’t undersell the fact that Carter’s new club should be able to overlook his obvious flaws and give him 500-plus plate appearances.”

What Didn’t: “Too many people are overlooking Gomes due to an injury-riddled campaign. The dude can hit and should threaten the elusive 20-home-run mark at the catcher position.”

The Verdict: J.P. did an awesome job identifying values at the back-end of his roster. He spent $10 on his seven cheapest players, and they combined to earn $44 of value. Unfortunately for J.P., four other players combined for $77 of loss because of injury (Peralta), suspension (Gordon) , and disastrous performance (Gomes, Corbin).

What Worked: “I was down to a buck after signing everyone else up and Lamb was my favorite of the $1 options. He earned $3 in his rookie season despite missing time and playing through an injury. There’s more power coming and he won’t be a zero elsewhere.”

What Didn’t: “This feels a little like cheating because the speed guys always come out higher on pure valuation than the market is willing to pay on draft day. Still, I like DeShields as one of only a small handful of players that could swipe 40.”

The Verdict: I had one of the better offensive units among the nine participants despite below-average seasons from Posey and Upton, my two most expensive players. My pitching, on the other hand, was one of the worst collections in the group. Kluber and Thor both delivered SP1 earnings at SP2 prices, but the rest of my picks were simply poor choices.

What Worked: “I’m absolutely fine being the one everyone thinks is too high on Ramirez. The outfield didn’t work out, but he hit when his shoulder was healthy (as he pretty much always has), and his shoulder is healthy now.”

What Didn’t: “Miller’s DRA (3.14) from 2015 suggests that his strong season was not a mirage, and despite not having the top-flight strikeout numbers some thought he would, he remains a solid SP3 in most formats. Corbin would be higher if there wasn’t the concern over an innings limit in his first full season back from Tommy John. Without any restriction, he’d be a $15 pitcher for me, easily.”

The Verdict: Overcoming a $53 bath on the Diamondbacks pair and a similarly disastrous minus-$24 from your priciest buy is a hell of an accomplishment. You can chalk it up to a pile of $7-13 returns, nearly all of which came from underpriced veterans doing what they do rather than youngsters realizing their upside.

What Worked: “While Lindor is being touted as an obvious regression candidate in the power department (which is completely fair given his career minor-league numbers), a shortstop that can hit double-digit home runs, eclipse 20 stolen bases and hit at least .280 is an extremely valuable commodity. From where I stand, he’s a bargain at $17.”

What Didn’t: “At his apex, which could still potentially be years away, Blake Swihart has the upside to become the top catcher in fantasy baseball not named Buster Posey or Kyle Schwarber. He showed glimpses of his lofty offensive ceiling in the second half of last season, hitting .303/.353/.452 over 168 post-All-Star break plate appearances. He’s one of only a handful of catchers with legitimate fantasy upside and at the very least he won’t be a drag on my roster’s batting average.”

The Verdict: Good on George (and others) for touting Quintana last preseason. In retrospect, it’s embarrassing that only three of us took him at $6 and five of us (me included) spent $5 on Corbin, who had a shorter track record and was objectively worse, not to still mention still working his way back from TJ. Guess we needed to see Quintana throw almost 1,000 innings before believing. I had to go back and look at Lackey’s stat line when I saw he earned $21. I assumed he must’ve won 18 games or so, but no, he won 11. I guess that’s what a 3.35 ERA and 1.06 WHIP, and 180 strikeouts over nearly 190 innings is worth?

What Worked: “I decided to scour the reliever market for cheap saves, which is one of my (least) favorite things to do in general. I settled on Alex Colome for $5 as I think he has a strong chance to be the primary closer for the entirety of the season, even after Brad Boxberger returns and presumably continues to walk everybody in sight.”

What Didn’t: “With Goldschmidt, Correa, and Machado anchoring the offense, what could go wrong? Seriously though, this team obviously needs the three superstars to stay healthy and produce to have any chance.”

The Verdict: I included that last quote because it’s kind of amazing that J.J.’s team performed as well as it did on aggregate with its three core superstars bringing back negative $46. They were J.J.’s only three offensive players to come back in the red, as he was able to at least break even at every other position. The pitching staff had a similar theme, overcoming a big loss on Corbin with balance and a couple opportunistic bullpen selections.

What Worked: “On the pitching side, I just wanted to find value in whatever shape it took. Judging from the values I’ve been seeing, that would probably mean no pitchers for $25+ and several pitchers in the high teens or low twenties.”

What Didn’t: “Five of my fifteen hitters are projected by the PFM for double-digit totals in both HR and SB (Springer, Upton, Gomez, Ramirez, Murphy). Three more hitters missed double-digit projections in both HR and SB by only one or two stolen bases (Zobrist, Belt, Peralta).”

The Verdict: Segura and Murphy were the two most profitable players among the nine entries and Scooter’s was the only roster with either, much less both. It was his pitching staff that brought the title home, though. This was the only unit that didn’t have a double-digit drag. He found two SP1 at SP2 prices, got a little lucky with two bullpen arms for whom there was role uncertainty when Mike released his values, and got steady production in between, Also, Lackey. I still don’t’ really get it. Congrats, Scooter.

Sweet to see how things worked out for all the staff picks!
(It would be awesome if somebody at BP would create an online form where members could play along and test our mad skills in this game, similar to the hacking mass game. I know resources are limited, so please just consider this an entry into the suggestion box.)

A great look back, and it underpins how difficult prognosticating is (and also how good Mike's values are).
I would second the call for the hoi polloi to be able to compete in a model portfolio competition...it would be fun, and an interesting way to check the conventional wisdom among BP fantasty players.

I agree - this would be a fun game. BUrrRutledge - what do you think of starting this up on our own? BP is always so busy writing articles and podcasting that they may not have time. Let me know - can post in the forum to see if others are into it.